Divorce and remarriage: pensions state and private

peachespeaches

I divorced my husband in 2002 and following the divorce we were going through the process of a pension sharing agreement as his private (work) pension was significantly larger than mine and it was a 24 year marriage, I'd brought up kids etc. I dropped the claim on his pension as we got back together and I thought I would get it anyway (widows pension). Apparently I wont unless we remarry, which we may actually do at some point, but dont feel in a rush to do it.

But I since found out that my state pension record is based partly on his contributions for some tax years. Although I paid full NI contributions, I presume this was when I was on maternity leave or something. If I remarry him, I wont be allowed to use his NI contributions to make up my state pension. So I have absolutely no idea whether I will be better or worse off when and if I remarry. I have phoned the people who sent me my pension forecast and they couldnt help i.e. couldnt tell me how much worse off I would be unless I actually remarried and then asked for a pension forecast!

Anybody any ideas???

CIS

I used to work for state pension forecasting on the section dealing with widows and divorcees and we used to gett his query a lot. The old system I used to use would allow the marital status to be changed and 2 forecasts issued - married and divorced but I suspect the new system doesn't. However, it wouldn't take long for them to have done a manual calcualtion for you.

If you are married and have a basic pension more than 60% of his, you wont get any increase on your pension.

If the pension shown on your forecast for being divorced is more than about £50, then you cant get higher by claiming as a married woman.

However, if your own accrued pension is higher than you could claim as a married woman, you will get teh pension paid on your NI record.

peachespeaches

Thank you CIS for your reply. Im a bit confused about 2nd, 3rd and 4th paragraphs.

How do I know if I have a basic pension more than 60% of his?
My divorced pension forecast was about £86 per week ... you say I cant get higher claiming as a married woman.... BUT if I remarried him would I get a lower pension than the £86?
I dont know how I would know if my own accrued pension is higher than I could claim as a married woman.

I would appreciate it if you could clarify, please?